insideKENT Magazine Issue 90 - September 2019 | Page 155

Founded in 198 9, the Air Ambulance Kent
Surrey Sussex (AAKSS) started with one
helicopter carrying a paramedic and medical
technician serving the population of Kent five days
a week. Today, it has a fleet of three helicopters and
a much larger team of doctors and paramedics, all
specialists in advanced emergency medicine, working
24/7 to save lives across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
Last year the charity attended 2,465 call-outs, with
almost half of those missions (1,154) relating to
incidents in Kent.
Each flight is dispatched via the AAKSS dispatcher,
and their crew of two pilots and a medical team,
including a doctor and paramedic specifically
trained for Helicopter Emergency Medical Service
(HEMS), can be at an incident anywhere in Kent
within 25 minutes.
Leigh Curtis, Executive Director of Service Delivery
at AAKSS, said: “For our patients, every second
really is precious. In many cases survival can depend
on how quickly they receive a time critical treatment
such as being placed into an induced coma after a
brain injury, having chest surgery to enable them to
breathe or being given an emergency blood
transfusion if they are bleeding.
“These interventions are complex and as a result
normally only available in hospital but our doctors
and paramedics safely bring the skills of the hospital
to the patient’s side, delivering these life-saving, time
critical treatments, sometimes at the roadside, to
hundreds of patients a year.”
The latest AW169 helicopters in the fleet are quicker
than previous models, being able to reach a patient
on average three minutes sooner and make the trip
to hospital five minutes faster – vital seconds in
helping to save patients suffering life-threatening
trauma. Additionally, having a larger cabin allows
their medical teams to treat the patient whilst in
flight, enabling even faster transfers to the full facilities
of a major trauma centre.
Largely reliant on income from the public to fund
its operations, AAKSS needs to raise more than
£11m a year to keep flying, a figure that is set to
rise as the charity continues its programme of
investing in new training, research, expanded services
and equipment.
Lynne Harris, Director of Income Generation at
AAKSS, added: “We are very grateful to the
thousands of people who actively fundraise for us,
whether it’s challenging themselves to do a marathon,
a 10k run, a skydive or some other activity, or
managing our collection boxes in pubs and shops
across Kent.”
The charity also runs an extensive calendar of events
as well as a highly successful weekly lottery.
To find about more about Air Ambulance Kent
Surrey Sussex and how to support its work, visit
www.aakss.org.uk.
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